FEC opens case on Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign

The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is looking into new allegations that former Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign tried to bribe an Iowa politician to back him on the waning days of the Iowa caucuses.

The new complaint was filed by Florida evangelist Peter Waldron, a former presidential campaign aide to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. Waldron also has filed complaints alleging ethical and financial wrongdoing by the Bachmann campaign. Some of those allegations remain before the FEC, the House Ethics Committee, and a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.

Both sets of allegations center on former Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson, Bachmann’s Iowa campaign chairman. He resigned his legislative post under an ethical cloud last year. According to Waldron’s complaint, first reported in The Iowa Republican, Sorenson was offered money to abandon the Bachmann campaign and endorse Paul.

A previous investigation by the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee found a total $77,000 in suspicious or unaccounted for payments to Sorenson, as well as an uncashed $25,000 check from an alleged intermediary.

Waldron’s complaint, which he provided Monday to the Houston Chronicle, implicates several people involved in the Paul campaign. Much of the evidence is based on emails and audio recordings of the alleged participants.